Income Inequality in New Zealand
Income Inequality in New Zealand
The purpose of this report is to examine inequality and inequity in New Zealand income between ethnicity, gender and education. It will look at the positive and negative effects in income inequality. Inequality is the unequal distribution of household or individual income across various participants in an economy and inequity is unfairness involving favourtism and bias. To conduct my investigation I looked at articles and websites which contained information which was recent and relevent to domestic New Zealand inequality. The Gini Coefficient, a standard measure of income inequality that ranges from zero (everyone has identical incomes) to 1 (all incomes goes to only one person) rose by 4% in New Zealland along with 16 of the 22 OECD countries from mid 1990 to the late 2000's from the average of 0.29, from 0.27 to 0.34 for New Zealand.1 This means that inequality has increased in the country moving the Lorenz curve for New Zealand outward into a greater curve. The curve shows that a greater percentage of wealth is owned by the top decile of the population, indicating that the rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer. Impacts of the recession in terms of job losses impacted disproportionately those with low income, which means Maori and Pacific people as they are disproportionately represented in those lower incomes.There was an increase in European income from $569 a week during the recession to $580 this year while Maori experienced a sharp drop in income, down $40 to $459 and Pacific people, down $65 to $390. Maori unemployment rose from 10.2% in March 2008 to 14.8% in March 2012, Pacific unemployment rose from 8.7% to 14.7% while European unemployment only rose by 3% to 4.9%. A maturing Asian population caused a large increase in the median income for Asians from $344 a week to $405.2 In 2006 the mean income for Maori was 73% of Non-Maori median income and 85.7% of the mean income of all residents, the Pacific
The purpose of this report is to examine inequality and inequity in New Zealand income between ethnicity, gender and education. It will look at the positive and negative effects in income inequality. Inequality is the unequal distribution of household or individual income across various participants in an economy and inequity is unfairness involving favourtism and bias. To conduct my investigation I looked at articles and websites which contained information which was recent and relevent to domestic New Zealand inequality. The Gini Coefficient, a standard measure of income inequality that ranges from zero (everyone has identical incomes) to 1 (all incomes goes to only one person) rose by 4% in New Zealland along with 16 of the 22 OECD countries from mid 1990 to the late 2000's from the average of 0.29, from 0.27 to 0.34 for New Zealand.1 This means that inequality has increased in the country moving the Lorenz curve for New Zealand outward into a greater curve. The curve shows that a greater percentage of wealth is owned by the top decile of the population, indicating that the rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer. Impacts of the recession in terms of job losses impacted disproportionately those with low income, which means Maori and Pacific people as they are disproportionately represented in those lower incomes.There was an increase in European income from $569 a week during the recession to $580 this year while Maori experienced a sharp drop in income, down $40 to $459 and Pacific people, down $65 to $390. Maori unemployment rose from 10.2% in March 2008 to 14.8% in March 2012, Pacific unemployment rose from 8.7% to 14.7% while European unemployment only rose by 3% to 4.9%. A maturing Asian population caused a large increase in the median income for Asians from $344 a week to $405.2 In 2006 the mean income for Maori was 73% of Non-Maori median income and 85.7% of the mean income of all residents, the Pacific